AIXpert Blog

SOBRE ESTE BLOG

AIXpert Blog is about the AIX operating system from IBM running on POWER based machines called Power Systems and software related to it like IBM Systems Director, PowerVM for virtualisation and PowerSC for security plus performance monitoring and nmon

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If you are using AIX sendmail, you should consider the following fix to prevent spammers from using it as an open mail relay. ftp://aix.software.ibm.com/aix/efixes/security/sendmail_3_mod.tar.Z /a> The exposure applies to AIX 5.3 ML1 and earlier distributions. The exposure was resolved in AIX 5.3 ML2. For more information, see http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2003-0285

HMC CORRECTIVE SERVICE Announcing a Corrective Service package for all HMC 4.5.0 customers. This package addresses the hang experienced with using certain CD/DVD media on a 7310/7315CR2. This fix requires that MH00324 be installed on a V4 R5.0 HMC prior to managing or upgrading the server. This service package is referenced by APAR MB01174. This corrective service can be downloaded from the techsupport web site: http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/hmc/power5/fixes/ptf_MH00378.html

p4 HMC CORRECTIVE SERVICE Announcing a fix for HMC Version 3 Release 3.0. Fix for hang using some CD/DVD media on 7315-CR2 This fix requires HMC 3.3.6 be installed prior to it's installation. This corrective service can be downloaded from the techsupport web site: http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/hmc/power4/fixes/ptf_U804593.html

Version 10 is available for the nmon performance monitor. It supports to Power5 micropartitioning. For more information and download, see http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/eserver/articles/analyze_aix/index.html

This has been a very popular topic for a long time and still asked quite frequently. So I thought I would post the support flash link again here. http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/FLASH10390

I want to remind you of the value of pSeries Subscription Services. Recently, those of us subscribed to receive 'Critical Fixes' got a note pointing to this URL http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/criticalfixes3/critfixes/5300-02.html This listed 36 Critical Fixes of which two were Critical Security Fixes: IY68463 AIX 5.3 SECURITY: Local root exploits in perl 5.8.x IY70026 AIX 5.3 Attacks against TCP via ICMP Other critical security fixes recently announced through subscription service IY68825 AIX 5.3 Remote... [More]

I want to remind you of the value of pSeries Subscription Services. Recently, those of us subscribed to receive 'Critical Fixes' got a note pointing to this URL: http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/criticalfixes3/critfixes/5300-02.html This listed 36 Critical Fixes of which two were Critical Security Fixes: IY68463 AIX 5.3 SECURITY: Local root exploits in perl 5.8.x IY70026 AIX 5.3 Attacks against TCP via ICMP Other critical security fixes recently announced through subscription service IY68825 AIX 5.3 Remote... [More]

One customer was experiencing slow performance for the gcc build script and the Apache configure script. The problem was resolved by exporting the following variables. export CONFIG_SHELL=/opt/freeware/bin/bash export CONFIG_ENV_ARGS=/opt/freeware/bin/bash The performance for the Apache configure script went from 2 1/2 hours to 3 minutes. The performance for the gcc and gcc++ build went from 4-5 hours to 35 minutes. The performance for the full blown gcc build using NFS went... [More]

IBM is starting to contact customers and business partners urging them to pay very close attention to keeping firmware current in order to minimize unscheduled outages. Here's an excerpt from a letter sent to IBM Business Partners: "Ensuring all IBM pSeries systems in customer locations are up to date on Firmware loads is essential to achieving the highest level of customer satisfaction possible. Firmware updates provide increased hardware reliability to customerseServer p5 systems. But we can't get the word out to all our customers without... [More]

If you plan to use an existing HMC with a new Power5 server, be sure the HMC version is 4.5. This is required for the current Power5 microcode (SF230_145, August 2005). The new microcode/HMC versions support concurrent maintenance, or the ability to do most microcode upgrades dynamically, without having to take down partitions. You can download the HMC update from http://www-912.ibm.com/eserver/support/fixes/

For those in the Western US, there will be a Power on Demand roadshow starting next week. The roadshow is targeted for technical audiences, and will demonstrate the following: Power5 Virtualization Creation of Virtual I/O Servers Creation of micropartitions with virtualized boot disks and ethernet Dynamic CPU load balancing Rapid provisioning of servers By the end of this session, you should be able to set up your own Power5 server with micropartitioning and virtualization. For more information and registration, see the following URL... [More]

The "lparstat" command shows the available physical processors in the shared CPU pool on a Power5 micropartitioned server. The lparstat command can be run from any logical partition that has enabled "Allow shared processor pool utilization authority" **. The following lparstat output shows 10 measurements taken at 5 second intervals. The size of the shared pool is 2 CPU's (psize). The available processors for each sample interval is shown under the "app" column. For example, first line under the app column shows 0.65 available processors. The... [More]

The newly announced POWER5+ models require AIX 5.2 ML7 or AIX 5.3 ML3 if they're going to be running AIX. There are new hardware capabilities here that are supported with code in those maintenance releases. Likewise, it is highly recommended that HMC Version 5 Release 1 be installed on HMCs managing these system. There are some significant changes in the HMC code at 5.1, including the ability to install/upgrade over the network and the availability of Recovery DVDs. Watch the HMC support page http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/hmc for... [More]

There they go again. This week Sun announced several new Sparc IV+ servers, ran a couple of benchmarks and are claiming world domination in server performance. Here's the headline. " Sun Surpasses IBM for Server Leadership: New High-End Sun Fire Systems Give Sun New Edge; World-Record Benchmarks Released " http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2005-10/sunflash.20051017.1.html Well, before you get excited, you might want to read their Benchmark Footnotes at the bottom of the page. If you do, you'll see the Sparc IV+ core (CPU) performance is... [More]

The Power5 VIO server allows client partitions to share resources (disks, optical drives and ethernet adapters). When configuring these resources, avoid the temptation of using AIX commands (oem_setup_env). It can get you into trouble. Use "padmin" commands. The reason is that VIO works differently than AIX. For example, clients bypass the LVM on the VIO server for disk I/O. Consequently, you can not mirror client LV's in the VIO server. (Mirroring must be done by the client OS.) The VIO restrictions for client LV's include: Must be less... [More]

Here is a recovery procedure for replacing a failed client disk on a Virtual IO server. It assumes the client partitions have mirrored (virtual) disks. The recovery involves both the VIO server and its client partitions. However, it is non disruptive for the client partitions (no downtime), and may be non disruptive on the VIO server (depending on disk configuration). This procedure does not apply to Raid5 or SAN disk failures. The test system had two VIO servers and an AIX client. The AIX client had two virtual disks (one disk from each... [More]